Kintsugi
by ToTheBlueberry
Summary: "Wake up. Open your eyes, please, Cas," Dean's voice is breaking. "Hang on." No. I can finally let go. After everything I've done. . . But I remember. That angel I watched- the world still needs him. Needs me. My name is Cas. I am an angel of humanity. I am alive. And I- I forgive myself. (Not a deathfic, one shot, season 12 finale (spoilers, duh))


**Uuuuuunnnggghhhhhhh this gave me so many emotions. Hey, you- yes, you. Do you like My Chemical Romance? Because they have a song that would go perfectly with this fic. It's called All The Angels. You should listen to it, and then you can sob over why, oh why, did MCR break up, while simultaneously sobbing over this fic.**

 **(But don't worry, it's not a deathfic. Mostly.)**

 **WAIT! You know what works better? This is Gospel by Panic!At the Disco. Specifically the first lyrics:**

 _This is gospel for the fallen ones / Locked away in permanent slumber / Assembling their philosophies / From pieces of broken memories_

 _ **WAIT! You know what works even better?**_ **The Light Behind your Eyes by MCR. I'll even put some of the lyrics here for you so you don't have to look them up. Ok sorry that's my last song recommendation, carry on (my wayward son/daughter).**

 _So long to all of my friends /_ _Every one of them met tragic ends /_ _With every passing day /_ _I'd be lying if I didn't say /_ _That I miss them all tonight /_ _And if they only knew what I would say /_ _If I could be with you tonight /_ _I would sing you to sleep /_ _Never let them take the light behind your eyes_

 _I failed and lost this fight /_ _Never fade in the dark /_ _Just remember you will always burn as bright_

 **D`:** **DX (those are crying face emojis in case you couldn't tell)-**

 **Last recommendation, I swear. If I'm to Die by Keaton Heston.**

 _If I'm to die before I hold you /_ _Know my arms were the worst off for it /_ _Give my family my love /_ _I would watch from above /_ _But I fear there is nothing but sleep_

* * *

 **FALLEN ONES**

A glow. Blue, pulsing from within my vessel. Ash- my wings are burning. The ringing stops. The glow fades into nothing. I hear the blade being pulled out, but I don't feel myself hit the ground.

I'm alone for the longest time. I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing. I can't move. I can feel the power of the portal behind me, a tear in space surging with unchecked power. I can hear snippets of the action around me- someone talking smugly, someone saying soft words of reassurance- someone shouting. Everything sounds slurred. Then it's quiet.

Lucifer is gone. Mary- is. . . gone. Not dead, but gone. I don't hear her voice amid the panic.

I'm only hanging on for the reassurance that I was the only one to meet this fate. I need to know if they're still alive. So I stay alert, although not entirely awake, aware with each second that passes of the fire tingling through my nerves, shredding every part of me, leaving me too tired to fight, to move.

I don't know how long it takes for me to notice it, but eventually I hear someone's uneven breaths. I'm not alone anymore. I feel a warm pair of hands on my shoulders. They move down, and a second later I feel a pressure on my chest, heavier than anything I've ever felt. It hurts. I don't want to get up.

I'm tired. I want to rest.

A second later I hear it. Or feel it, the voice above me. The vibrations of vocal cords are making sounds, I know, but if the words are directed towards me I can't respond. The rushing of blood in my ears is too loud, and even though it tells me I'm still alive- it's slowing down.

I can hear words in between the susurration of blood. _Hang on._

I don't want to. I can still feel. It hurts. I focus on the voice anyway, trying to tune out the pain that's suffocating, squeezing the desire to breathe out of me. The voice is deep, worried- familiar. I think it's Dean's- I can smell the leather of the impala on him.

His voice is breaking.

I'm worried, almost enough to try to open my eyes, because I don't know where Sam is. Is he okay? Surely Dean would be with him instead if he was injured. But my eyes won't cooperate. I can't act- I'm only an observer. Or- anything _but_ an observer, because my eyelids aren't cooperating.

I focus on the voice. There are hands cupping the sides of my face now, big and warm. I wouldn't mind dying right now.

The presence next to me shifts, propping me up slightly. Fire laces through me again. I can taste the iron tang of blood in my mouth. Why am I still alive? Was this long and slow death what it was like for my brethren, each time I felled one with an angel blade? But I know it's only been minutes that have passed.

 _Wake up._

The hands are gone, but they don't move elsewhere to assess the damage. I can't feel them. I can't feel anything. The pain is gone. The fire that had been coursing through my veins is gone, burnt out. In its place is ice, numbing and tingling. I can't feel the burnt husk of my true form where my wings were reduced to ash. I'm floating, but I know that's impossible because my wings are gone.

 _Damn you, Cas._

I'm sorry. I know you're mad at me, Dean. I'm sorry.

And you still don't know why I did it. Why I ran away. Why I tried to help Jack- I was controlled, yes, I realize that now, and I still wish I could have somehow broken through the mind control, proven my will to be as strong as yours or Sam's. I wish you would have been able to break through to me so we could fix this together. But this nephilim- he's too powerful.

But part of me had a reason for what I did. I didn't want the world to fall on your shoulders again. I've seen what it does to you, what it's doing to you now, even if you've become used to the weight.

 _Stay with me._

 _You can let go._

I just want to _tell_ you- I tried once. Last time there was a situation like this, when I was dying and rotting away in a matter of minutes. You were trying to save me then too. I tried to tell you. I technically did, even though I knew it wouldn't have been fair to you. God knows I'm trying to tell you now. But it's too late.

I'm dying. Maybe I'm already dead. I'm not really sure, but it doesn't matter. It all ends the same way. I find myself wondering- where do I go when the light flickers from my eyes? What's next? The answer is simple enough, and I've already had to resign myself to it several times. I'm not scared of dying. I'm scared of what comes after. Nothing. There's nothing for me. No Heaven, no hell, no purgatory. Just- _nothing_. I cease to be. I become a thought, a blurred memory whose existence can't be proven on any plane of reality, earthly or otherwise.

And did I want that to happen? Was it worth it? Maybe. I knew my days with you would end in a hail of bullets.

 _Open your eyes, please, Cas. I'm sorry._

Dean- if you really care about me- if you love me, let me go. It's easier that way.

Don't make this harder for me. I don't want to go, not now. Not really. I need to- I still need to prove myself, redeem myself. . .

But the other part of me, the part that remembers who I was, what I've done- part of me is relieved. I don't have to fight anymore. I won't be cursed to hurt the only things I love.

I can let go.

 _CAS!_

 _Sam-_ Dean says, then shouts, _Sammy! Get over here, he needs-_

The words fade out. I can't hear anything. I can't feel, can't see. Can't move. Can't breathe.

Finally.

I hope I don't come back this time.

* * *

Peace.

And quiet.

I don't like it. I know I'm missing something- some _one_ \- and the silence just lets my thoughts scream through my mind. Floating and swirling in my subconscious, so close, but when I try to grab one, it flutters just out of my reach.

I can't remember why I'm here. How I got here.

What "here" _is,_ exactly.

But perhaps most concerning is that I'm not sure who's asking all these questions.

I don't know who I am.

I realize that this might be cause for alarm. I feel something jolt in me- whoever "me" is. Maybe it's a spark of fear or worry, but it's quickly blotted out by the oppressive nothingness around me. I can't remember why I ever cared, what made me scared.

I can't feel anything for a long time. I wonder if I'm supposed to feel, or if that was just some fluke in my design; my true nature is to be one with this abyss, constantly stretching out, extending into nothing, a rolling and unfathomable empty.

But that can't be right. This can't be right. There used to be more, didn't there? The concept of what more there could be is unimaginable- I suppose, thinking back, it would be like trying to imagine a new color, or contemplate the ends of space. It's impossible.

That word invokes a challenge. I strain harder than I did before, feeling for the very edges of my being. I can't tell where I end and the abyss starts- but there must be more. There _has_ to be more than this.

I reach out for one of those thoughts that was always dangling out of reach, taunting me, but at the same time drifting freely, if only I could summon the will to grab it. My mind brushes along the edge of one thought, the one closest to me, and I remember it with a nostalgia that's entirely unfamiliar to me.

A memory. I don't know how the word comes to me, or what exactly it is, but it fills me with more emotions than I can take the time to name, more feelings that I must strive to understand amid the darkness of the abyss. I don't understand it; I don't need to. I just feel, and it feels- _good._

At first.

The memory plays out before me and I'm watching as a beam of light is formed with fledgling wings. A father watches his creation. A second later, I see a child playing with his brothers and sisters, and I know, somehow, that this is that same being, that same creation made of pure light. His siblings are the same. Beings of good. Of purity.

I watch as the being- an angel- explores this new world alongside his brothers and sisters. A fish heaves itself onto land. One of his brothers tells him not to touch it. He listens, not thinking much of it. Not realizing how important that would be.

His wings grow, powerful appendages of muscle and feather. I watch as he grows, soon becoming the strongest of his brothers. But as his power grows, so do his father's absences. His visits are few and far between. The playful fighting between siblings suddenly becomes more real. He's ridiculed for being- _different._

I watch through the eyes of the angel as he's chosen among his siblings to hold the highest honor. I watch as a war is waged in Hell, and I watch as his siblings are picked off by the legions of evil, and I feel their pain, each death, the grief. . .

I see the angel trying to hide his own pain, the scorch on his wings, the fire in his heart. I watch as he rises from the depths of some awful evil, a darkness that's completely unlike this indifferent empty. It's sinister, and I shudder just to think about it. The figure flies higher, and I see that he's carrying something, and I realize _why_ he was so willing to corrupt his wings with the scorch of hellfire. Why the sacrifices were made.

I realize what it was all for.

It was never for the world. It was always for one man.

 _You don't think you deserve to be saved?_

My mind stutters to a halt. The memory flickers, fading out as the words carve themselves into my mind. I don't know where that thought came from. Is it my own? I can't shrug off the feeling that it means something more than it says. That there's more to the words, the story.

The angel is changing. He's not the stone-faced, all-powerful being he once was.

 _They feel I've begun to express emotions._

They can make him weak, but they also make him stronger than he ever was.

I watch as the angel that had risen to glory only seconds ago is crushed into the earth. I watch as his wings are torn off, as he's cut off from his family, and I can feel his pain as my own, and I marvel over how he can still stand. A being that had been at the pinnacle of power, now one of the most wretched beings on earth.

 _I killed two angels this week. These are my brothers. I'm hunted, I've rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you._

But he continues to fight alongside them. He finds companionship in the brothers, uses them to fill the void of guilt that he feels at killing his own family. It doesn't matter how terribly they treat him- those angels are his family. And despite being disowned by them, he's found a new one. They all believe- they all fight- for the same goal. Free will.

I watch as the angel joins forces with a demon. Crowley. He betrays the brothers again to maintain order in the family that hates him, the other angels. He becomes a god, threatening to kill the only ones he's ever actually cared about. He's drunk with a power he can neither control nor understand.

But I keep watching. It's all I can do.

The angel loses his power. He forgets everything, which is more than he thinks he deserves.

Then he's stuck in a place called Purgatory with one of the brothers. He hates himself for abandoning the brother, but he knows it's for his own protection, because in this place, he doesn't belong, and he's the light that will draw the monsters to him like moths trying to smother a flame. He tries to distract the monsters and keep them away from the man, but in the end they find each other.

 _I prayed to you. Every night._

Then they're out, but the angel stays behind. The man has already forgiven him, but he needs to find his own forgiveness.

When he finally does get out, he makes a vow to himself. Never again will he abandon the brothers. He can't lose another family.

 _I'll watch over you._

I watch as the angel is manipulated by his sister, Naomi. He breaks the vow- he abandons the brothers. Not much later he loses his light. His grace. I watch as he's kicked out of a haven, and I watch as the heart that he so recently acquired begins to break. For a few months, when the once-angel wanders the streets alone, hopelessly without purpose, I'm angry at the man for shunning a friend. But I understand why he did it. I understand, when he sees the angel with a blade through his stomach- I understand that it wasn't because he didn't care. He just cared for his other brother too much.

The scenes change, years flicking by in the span of seconds, but I experience each second of every year as it plays out. Time, in this abyss, is just a suggestion. It holds no power, and following its guidelines is merely a rule that's scoffed at.

A war is waged between factions- between families. I watch as the angel helps two brothers in their quest for- for-

I don't know. I can't determine what exactly their end goal is, but I know it must be heroic. Good. I can see their souls.

Souls- brothers- that are achingly familiar, but they're as strangers to me as I am to myself. I keep watching. I don't have much choice.

I watch as the angel is forced to kill his siblings. I watch as one brother takes on a curse, and as the other frantically tries to save him. I watch as the angel helps him.

 _I'm the one who will have to watch you murder the world. So if there's even a small chance that we can save you, I won't let you walk out of this room._

I watch as the angel is beaten and thrown aside like a rag doll. I watch as punch after punch lands on him. I watch as he thinks this is the end. He thinks that he'll die by the hand of one he saved from evil so many years ago, the very thing he's cursed with now. I watch as the blade comes close to his face.

And I watch as it's stabbed through the book near his head.

 _Next time I won't miss._

As I keep watching, I find myself longing for when I couldn't feel, when I was senseless and all this pain was an unimaginable concept. But no matter how hard I try, I can't release my grip on the memory. It made me feel warm before, but now it's bitter, turning my endless vastness from careless to cold, painfully twisting what I can feel until I want nothing more than for it to stop.

His absent father comes back, and although I know the angel wants to meet him, he can't. Because he let the devil in. He's a prisoner in his own flesh now, releasing an evil on the world that he can't control. He lets the brothers down, he hurts them and betrays them. . . But they just welcome him back. Every time.

Why? My thoughts are sluggish and I allow the memory to continue for a few more seconds- years flash by. When I try again to escape the memory, I stop, reluctantly turning my mind back to the angel.

 _You know this world, this sad, doomed little world, it needs you._

After listening to the brothers interact with him, I've finally learned his name. Cas. Sometimes, and only very rarely, he's Castiel.

 _You mean too much to me._

He's almost dying again. Laid out on a couch, blood mingling with inky black decay, and they're all waiting for a monster to come for them. He tells them what they mean to him before he takes his last breath.

 _I love you. I love all of you._

But then he's saved. Again. And I can feel his slight disappointment that he didn't meet his end right there. He wonders why he keeps being saved. He's convinced that he's useless, that the wicked get no rest- that life, once the greatest gift, is now his punishment.

But he's saved nonetheless.

I can see why. It's no punishment. The world needs him. All he's done, everyone he's hurt. . . The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But he's leaving the world better than he found it. Hasn't he suffered enough?

Hubris. That's his weakness. He thinks he has the power to save everyone, so he convinces himself that it's a relatively small price to pay to once again betray the brothers, his friends. This time, it's for the sake of an unborn child. An unborn evil, the spawn of Lucifer. This betrayal seems so much more final, more fatal.

Time passes. The angel- Cas- grows closer to the mother, a woman named Kelly. He allows himself to care about her- foolishly, yes, because he knows that she won't survive the delivery of the child. But he thinks that easing her fear and pain can atone for what he's caused. He thinks that she might be his last chance for redemption.

A split second later, the woman is dead. I don't see it happen, but I know. And Castiel- he's dying. Lucifer, a brother that I had witnessed him grow up with before the devil was cast down- he murdered him. The names Cain and Abel appear in my mind, and I can't help but feel a twinge of bitter humor at them, although I don't know why. Their story is unknown to me.

I watch as one brother murders the other in a fit of rage, fueled by god's favoring one over the other, and by an untempered, stormy anger. The blade is wrenched out, and a blue glow is Castiel's final swan song, his final offering of light and good to the world.

The light burns through his eyes, through his mouth that's open in a silent cry. Then it winks out. Castiel falls. Wings burn into the ground.

The devil disappears, taking someone that the angel had grown to care about over the short time he's known her. And the angel- _Castiel,_ I have to keep reminding myself _-_ he's not getting back up this time.

The seconds stretch out to better reflect the laws of time in this memory I'm viewing. The abyss finally relents, and I'm watching the memory in real time. I try to go back to indifference, when I couldn't feel, but somehow I know that it's too late.

I have to see this.

Castiel isn't alone. One of his brothers- no, not a brother, these are the men he's been fighting alongside, these are the- the- _Winchesters_ \- they're brothers, but not in blood-

One of them stays beside Castiel's still form. The other- Sam- runs inside after a golden light shoots forth from the nearby house. But it isn't the same light of God-given benevolence that Castiel was created from.

I want to see what this light is, but that's not what the memory is showing me. Instead, I watch the elder Winchester- I study his light, the forest green soul pulsing, twined with streaks of gold and a darker, deeper, dormant red. It all seems so familiar, every flaw as beautiful and beloved to me as the stars. I watch as the man loses his composure, carding his fingers through Castiel's - _Cas_ '- hair as he lifts his head up into his lap. I feel something that I think is actual pain. Not empathetic pain, as I felt before, but actual physical pain, searing my core, whiting out my vision. I feel a twinge of grief. Cas didn't deserve this.

The man is still leaning over the angel, pressing hard on his chest as blood bubbles up between his fingers, mingling with ash. He whispers desperate words, and I can feel them echo in my head a split second after I watch them being spoken. The litany is only broken by the choked sobs escaping from between the man's lips.

 _Wake up, Cas. C'mon. We need you. I need you._

 _Come back._

"Damn you, Cas." The man fists his hands into Cas' collar, pulling himself down close to him. I flinch at the sudden exclamation, but I can hear the utter brokenness in the man's voice. I can see it in his soul. It hurts just as much as the ache that's situated itself into the center of my being. I want to go back to nothing, to no pain or suffering. . .

"Cas… I can't lose you. Not you too." I can see Cas' life force draining away. I can _feel_ it. He's still alive, but he's suffering. I want his pain to end, but at the same time I know, somehow, that it would be the end for me too.

 _Open your eyes, please, Cas. I'm sorry._

The man pauses for only a second. He bends down, cupping a hand behind the angel's neck to tilt his head back. He takes a breath before pressing his mouth against the angel's, paying no mind to the blood that tinges his lips. A second later, the angel's chest rises, and the man presses down again, more rhythmically this time. He's breathing for the angel.

I look away. There's a lake shimmering with the dying light of day, framed by leaves edged with gold that shiver in the trees. Everything is happening so slow in comparison to the whirlwind of events that brought me to this point. Is this the end of the memory? This feels final. A swan song.

Right when everything seemed like it would be fine.

I can't see this. I want to tell the man to just give up, move on, let go, but I don't have a voice.

I hear a snap. A rib. The man continues the chest compressions. More pain stabs through me- I'm convinced it's because I want Cas' suffering to end, but now. . . Now I suspect there might be more to it. Another dull snap cracks through the air, and this time the man falters for a moment as bone gives way under his hands.

But he doesn't stop.

I watch as the man sits back for a second, breathing hard, and I realize that several minutes have passed since he started the CPR. Time is hard to keep track of.

I don't think the angel is breathing anymore. My vision starts whiting out. Liquid fire is racing through me. I don't know why. It's unbearable, but I can't do anything about it. I keep watching.

The man bends down to give Cas another breath. He puts his head to the angel's chest like he's listening for something. He mutters something under his breath, staring at Castiel's lax, pale face. He's scared. His soul is agitated. He repeats the word again, louder this time, and I can barely make out what he says as he jabs two fingers under Cas' jaw, leaning his ear down to his chest.

" _CAS_!" the man starts moving more frantically, trying everything he can to get the angel to _just_ _open his eyes._ Through it all, I can't help but feel some comfort at the dedication of this man. A small consolation in this world that seems so dark. He taps the side of the angels face, trying to cling to the last dregs of hope, but it's slipping away.

I watch the memory with anticipation. The man with the glowing soul. The man that Castiel let down, the man that he loved and saved and fell and died for. Dean. Dean Winchester. I hold onto the names I've learned, the names I've grown to love. Sam and Dean. Family. Humanity.

I see Sam walk out of the house with someone I don't recognize. Dean hears them, but he doesn't turn around.

 _Sam,_ Dean says under his breath. He shouts, _Sammy! Get over here, he needs help._

I'm able to see the boy- a teenager- that Sam follows outside the house. Sam looks like he's about to protest when the boy comes close to the angel, like he's willing to protect what thin threads of life the angel is still holding onto with his own. But he says nothing, and his feet don't cooperate when he tries to get them to correct his balance before he falls hard on his knees. He'd left his brother to be with the angel alone. He thinks he should've been there sooner.

They're both so strong. I know this- I can feel the callouses on their souls. But now they're allowing themselves a moment of weakness.

Dean hasn't noticed the boy yet, but he quickly is alerted to his presence when he sees the light that begins to glow around him, curling through the boy's fingers like a snake. I watch long enough to see a golden light suffuse around Cas. It's like a miniature liquid supernova, dissolving away the darkness, leaving no crevice unlit. It strengthens, slipping under him, lifting him a few centimeters off the ground. His head tilts back. Dean stares as his gaze shifts up to follow the motion, open-mouthed, before his senses come back to him and he scrambles back.

Yes, I can see the boy's light- not like the light of my brothers. There's a smokiness to it, a haze that reminds me of the scorch of hell. He kneels down next to Castiel. The light seeps into the ground around the fallen angel, stretching along the length of his burnt wings, mingling with whatever remains of his grace, his life force. The brothers look terrified- but what can they do? They've never seen such power.

The brothers collectively gasp, staring at the light flowing around Castiel, no longer just a steady stream but now a wide bath of light, swirling like a tempest around him, ruffling his hair and bringing the glow back to his skin. There's a wide sweep of ash scarring the ground in the shape of a pair of wings. As I watch, the black is peeled off the ground by the gold light, fluttering and twirling like so many embers. They swirl, mingling with the gold light, and each shard of broken feather and bone is melded together with liquid gold until what once was ash is now a magnificent pair of wings arching up and away, connected at some point between Cas' shoulder blades. Feathers are restored; vanes are replaced with gold; broken bone is fixed. The entire time, the boy's eyes glow with power, staring into the distance as he concentrates on completing a task that he inherently knows he must do. He's a nuclear bomb trying to disguise himself as a grenade.

I can feel my hold on the memory slipping.

I don't see what becomes of Castiel. I'm watching the memory as a mere observer, but my attention is ripped away with a wrenching speed, one that seems much too hurried to belong in this void where time is the only thing to be had.

The memory fades, but I can still hear it, can still feel it playing, can still see fuzzy snippets of it amidst the dark backdrop. I'm back in the abyss. But this time, I'm not alone. This time, there is light.

 _My_ light. My _grace._

But there's another light here too, one that seems to fill the void. It's the golden light, the one that had taken an interest in Cas' grace just a second ago. It approaches me, surrounding me, wrapping around my grace, stitching the broken bits back together. With each second that passes by, the void begins disappearing, falling away.

And I realize. The memory- I was seeing the past. The present. The termination of my future.

I wasn't seeing through someone else's eyes. Those memories were mine. That pain, the grief. . . it was all mine.

The gold light is tugging at me, trying to pull me away from the endless darkness.

I'm- I'm not sure I want to follow.

Everything I've done. . .

No. My name is Cas. I am an angel of humanity. I am alive. And I-

I forgive myself.

* * *

 **This was an incredibly long chapter, but I didn't really see the point in breaking it up. How'd you guys like it? There's maybe possibly more to come- I did write an end scene where they're all reunited, but for some reason I can't find it now, but I might rewrite it and post it if you guys want.**


End file.
